


Seeing the World

by Echo_Tango_Romeo



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Discord: Secret Santa, F/M, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28360185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echo_Tango_Romeo/pseuds/Echo_Tango_Romeo
Summary: On New Years Eve, during a Ball, Cassandra finds the answer to one of her question.
Relationships: Cassandra/Varian (Disney: Tangled)
Kudos: 27





	Seeing the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bex/gifts).



> Merry Christmas Bex ~
> 
> (The events are happening after the series, post Canon)

She adjusts her corset in silence, breath stuck in her throat.

It's New Year's Eve celebration and she's not sure to be ready for the event. Rapunzel has prepared a dress for her, and she put it on herself, a little unsure. She likes her pants and shirt better, she feels more herself in her traveling clothes. Her hair feel strange, tangled in a low bun in the curve of her neck. She's used to having them free and flying in the wind of a ride.

When she came back to Corona, six months ago, she wasn't supposed to stay. She didn't intend to stay. But something has changed. Varian has changed. And it was difficult to decide on a day to leave, when she knew it meant not seeing his smile at every corridor turn.

It's not that anything happened between them, anything other than smiles and talks in gardens. Nothing more than a blossoming closeness, but there is something that makes her want to stay. Deep in her, there is also a will to go. To see more, to know more. To leave this place that was hers and feels so unusual since her return.

She is studying herself in the mirror, when there's a knock and with a final glance at her reflection, she walks through the door.

“Hi...” Varian says.

“Hi...” She replies.

There is nothing more than that little word between them, but Cassandra feels like it's already talking.

It's about the tone, a little low, a little shy. It's about the way he smiles, with just a line made of his lips, but with a light in his eyes. It's something soft and strangely meaningful.

He says 'hi', and it sounds like 'I'm happy to see you'.

“You look incredible.”

“Thank you...”

He asked her to come to the royal ball with him. He offered her to be the man holding her arm, three days ago. “It could be... fun?”.

Cassandra accepted.

It's the reason why she's wearing a dress and she's waiting in the middle of her open door, for Varian to move and to escort her to the ballroom.

“I like this color on you. I mean I like -it's my favorite. The color. It's my favorite color”

“... Raps chose it for me...” she confesses.

Rapunzel should have known. Cassandra doesn't wear blue. For a lot of obvious reasons, it's a color she chose to put out of her life. She questioned Rapunzel's idea, when she received the silk dress in the afternoon. Now, she knows.

“It's a... good choice... Can I say this?”

“You can.” she smiles with a step forward.

He steps back, for her to get out of her bedroom and extends his hand toward her.

“May I have the honor?”

It's easy, to walk those corridors by his side, arms linked, steps coordinated. He looks at her, in a place she knows too well.

“I've changed the formula. It's not wet for hours anymore, now.”

She laughs in a way she whishs would have been more discret. It's the place they cleaned together, when she was still a Lady-in-waiting at the castle during the science expo. When she raises her head to look at him, he's smiling with a little bit too much pride.

“That was a complicated day...” She says with a touch of regrets.

“It's how you call this? I call it a Friday, since my first experiment.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven. I discovered that there was a way to glue and un-glue some things. Too bad my first try was only glue and with my hand.”

She squeezes her lips. He smiles and she bursts into laugh. It's not her, to laugh that much, to feel that much. Maybe it's the time away from Corona, that made the world bigger, that helped her relax as she was suddenly able to see a wider future. Or it's just him. The way she was never under pressure with him, because there always was a sparkle of recognition in his eyes.

With him, she is free and for the first time, she is not scared to be left behind and unseen.

She can hear him chuckling. They are still silently laughing when they arrive in the ballroom. It's the longest room of the castle and Cassandra used to decorate it for the official festivities.

It has never been this magnificent.

The walls are covered in sparkling tapestry and there are long transparent and bright tears of cristal falling from the chandeliers above them. The light reverberates on every surface. It reminds her of Arendelle and the glass Castle she had the chance to visit.

It looks like a fairy tale.

“You like it?” Varian asks, shyness behind the melody of his words.

“It's incredible...”

“You said Arendelle was your favorite place, so...”

“You did amazing...” she replies.

He changed so much, while she was away. He grew up, more than she thought he ever would. His cheekbones are more visible, shadowing on the lines of his face. He looks more adult in his body marked by time, but his eyes and his smile, they say the same story than when he was a child.

“I'm glad you like it...”

He looks at her from under his eyelashes, deep and soft.

Caring.

“Can you please, move?” someone asks behind them.

Varian apologizes and she moves on her right taking him along her as the “crowd” they blocked enters the ballroom. She is not the most liked person in town, and in the six months she's been in Corona, no one said a word about it, but some looks are more telling than long speeches. There won't be any scene.

That doesn't mean that people are pleased to see her.

“Let me give you a tour” he offers.

She thinks for a second, that it's for them to get away from everyone but he actually has a lot of explanations about what they have done to decorate, about Rapunzel's paintings and how Cassandra's sketches -scribbles- helped with the whole conception of the place. It's interesting, but less than him when he explains something. Cassandra has seen magic in her life: snow magic and sun and moon's one. People creating snowflakes and rocks, brillant strong hair. But Varian doesn't need magic to create a world of enchantement.

All he needs is his brillant mind and his skilled hands. Cassandra has visited mysterious countries, and traveled far but she's never seen anything as incredible as him.

“You think it's boring...”

“No! No! Not at all. It's just...”

“You are far more interesting than all this.”

“It smells delicious and I didn't eat today...”

“What? Why?”

“I forgot...” she invents.

She had a long ride with Fidella to clear her head and when she came back, it was too late to eat if she wanted to be ready for the night. She told him the first excuse she's found and it's not a lie. But it's not really the truth.

“Buffet then...” he offers without giving her the time to answer.

They meet Rapunzel and Eugene, Lance with Catalina and Kiera. Everything is natural in their little corner of the room, with laughs under the violin's music and friendly smiles.

At some point, Varian and her are separated as Rapunzel pulls him on the dancefloor with her and Lance grabs Cassandra. It's ridiculous. Not really a dance, not really something she can recognize, but her corset feels too tight for how much she's laughing in front of Lance. On a clever move of the orchestra, the tune changes and as Rapunzel joins Lance on his new dancing manners, Varian grabs her waist and wards her off.

“Hey you...” she greets him.

“Hey... I thought it was time for a real dance.”

“Lance wasn't that bad.”

“It's comforting to know that when you laugh on the Dancefloor, it's not to mock your partner...”

“Depends on the partner...” she shrugs, as they take their position.

His arms are a little to tense, his steps a little bit too calculated, at some point, she gently squeezes his hand for him to look at her and not at the schema in his head.

“Relax...”

“I'm relaxed it's just... I don't want to step on you...”

She doesn't move on time, and he almost walks on her foot. When he looks at her, she smiles to him with the corner of her mouth, amused and a little mocking.

“No one's dead..?”

He chuckles and something eases in the line of his shoulders. The second dance is simpler.

All the ones after are natural.

He starts looking in her eyes and finds some courage needed to make her spin. Cassandra is sure, that the center of the room is the blue of his eyes as she finds her balance with her hand in his.

She forgets to listen to the melody. She forgets to catch the rhythm, she trusts his senses, the way he moves, the swings he starts and leads.

She follows him.

“I don't know this one” he whispers after an eternity of seconds that was almost a second of eternity.

“Then let's catch our breath...” she offers as she takes a little distance.

The room is spinning when she cuts through the crowd with his hand in hers to find an open window.

They take some steps on the terrasse ignoring the other persons around them, biting December's air crumbling on their heated skins.

Cassandra can only feel the hand in hers and they stop in front of the winter garden.

“Aren't you cold?” he asks her.

“I survived Arendelle... I can survive this.”

Her words don't seem to matter as he takes off his costume's vest and puts it on her shoulders. She tries no to smell his parfume on the fabric as the warm piece of clothing envelops her. She misses his hand, but she doesn't dare grabbing it as he leans, close to her on the guard rail.

“Do you miss traveling?”

“Sometimes... I miss... Well seeing new things. And I don't know... The freedom to be no one before entering a place...”

“Hm...”

He looks far, into the dark horizon, the line of the road ahead of them invisible even with the suffocating light of the city. Cassandra can't stop looking at the dancing shadows on his face.

“Do you want to leave with me?”

“What..?”

“Do you want to leave Corona and travel with me?”

“Are you sure?”

“Rapunzel will need new designs for parties after this one. And I could use a little bit of that pink glue you like to use so much...”

“Yeah, and I already made something for the corridors to be clean but not too slippy. So I think it's time to be your co-lady-in-waiting again.”

“You can't be my co-lady-in-waiting if I'm not a lady-in-waiting anymore. You can be my travel partner..?”

“Travel partner?”

“Don't you like it?” she wonders as he turns to her.

“There is something strange in the sound of it don't you think?”

She feels her breath hitching in her breast, something a little bit too heavy for her corset to be the cause. She moves in his direction, he moves in hers. And when she can breath his air, against his lips and feel the taste of the glass of champagne they shared in what could have been another life, discret on his mouth, she knows she belongs somewhere.

“What about just: Partner...?”

“I can do just partner...” she smiles.

Corona or elsewhere, it doesn't have any kind of importance, as long as he is with her.

It's his smile, that makes her world.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll hope you liked it, and that it makes you happy ~
> 
> (Comment have been deactivated because it's a gift ><)


End file.
